Weekend Nails: Matte vs. Shiny

I thought this would be another "orphan" post, where the parent image was lost before I could give the inspiration photo credit, but I kid you not, I Love Manicures!!! reposted the image that inspired this, credited to StylishLady.net, six minutes before I started this post. Serendipity!

This Weekend Nails mani was a mixed result. I started with a matte topcoat, then the next day I slid a coat of Wild Shine topcoat over it to de-mattefy it. It cleaned up poorly, so the photos aren't great, but here's what I came up with:

With Matte Topcoat (NYC Matte Me Crazy)

With Shiny Topcoat (Wet n Wild Wild Shine Clear Nail Protector)

For my base design, I used Julep Lacey, Revlon Copper Penny, and Nicole for OPI Lips are Dripping Honey. I love Copper Penny because it's a rich, almost foil type copper gold that covers other colors neatly. I tried a few other golds with this design, and none of them were pigmented enough to hold their own against Lacey, a deep midnight blue. Copper Penny looks the same over other colors as it does on its own, which made it perfect for this design.

Now normally, I love shine. The shiner the better. However, the satiny look of taking a deep, shimmery red, blue, or purple and covering it with a matte coat has been enticing me. Matte over large glitters and metallics is another look that has been popping up a lot lately that I like, so I decided to give it a try, since these colors already in my collection were great matches for the trends. I still think I like the shiny version better on this, mostly because there's so little of Lacey that mattefying it takes away from how interesting the design is. There is enough, however, to show that it mattes quite well.

Overall, both were nice-sophisticated, rich, and interesting. Cleanup was a bear, though, and I think that hurt the aesthetic. What do you think-matte or high shine? Or would you do like I did and go for the twofer by changing topcoat midway through the mani?